During the nineteenth century in France, women had certain roles that they had to fulfill. As stated in “France and Women 1789-1914” by James F. McMillan, French women were typically housewives and had limited access to education and to the work force. The serial of the five postcards that I analyzed, sent in 1905, reflect the stereotypical women role by summarizing a woman’s life in France during the nineteenth century.

The postcards show a young little girl sleeping  in a cradle with a doll, a young lady smiling and holding a little pink flower, a young lady getting kissed by a young man, a little baby girl with a doll in a blue cradle looking a her mother who is seated next to her, and a young little girl in the arms of her grandmother. Even though the postcards show only one one woman, it gives a general overview of expectations towards women in the nineteenth century.

A story can be told based on the images on the postcards. A baby girl sleeps holding her doll while her mind fills up with thousands and thousands of wonderful dreams. She is unaware of the society that she is to grow up in. Then, she is a young girl living in the age of disbelief. She still does not know where she is “living,” or the barriers that the nineteenth century would create for her. She watches her mom not knowing that she is a housewife because of the expectations of women at that time, in France. Also, not knowing that she will also have to live the life that she will be expected to live once she transitions to womanhood in the future. She first gets a taste of that when her new husband is chosen by her parents. She is indeed forced to like him and to get married to him. She soon has a baby girl. While she stares at her baby she remembers that at the age of her baby she would always think about what life would be and she reflects how her life is not what she thought it would be. A lot of time has passed and her little baby has lived the life she was “supposed” to live and has now had her own baby. Now she looks at her grandbaby the same way she looked at hers hoping that she would get a better life than her and daughter.

All this is a speculation based on the situation of women at the epoch. What we know is that the postcards were sent by a male or female friend to a young, unmarried, women schoolteacher. I believed that the friend sent her these postcards as a statement that she should quit her job and become a “true woman”. They want her to get married and live a normal domestic life as shown in the postcards. The postcards show the repeating cycle of childhood into womanhood due to the standards set by the patriarchal society.